Hear The Wind Sing – Haruki Murakami

There’s no such thing as perfect writing. Just like there’s no such thing as perfect despair.

I don’t think there are many ways to go wrong with reading Haruki Murakami, especially during a time when reading for leisure is taking a backseat (slightly). I mean, if that’s how he starts his books, there is simply no better way to pull this reader in.

Hear the Wind Sing is the first of Murakami’s work. And because of this, he has simply refused to allow this book to be translated and published outside of Japan. It is only thanks to Tanabata that I managed to get a hold of this book. This is also the first of the Rat Trilogy (as I am told it is so), the next two being Pinball, 1973 and A Wild Sheep Chase. It’s also widely recognised that Dance Dance Dance makes this Trilogy into some sort of quadrilogy.

So anyway, back to this lovely book. I have to admit, I’m somewhat not used to reading such a thin Murakami book. All the books I’ve read were full-length novels (I think Sputnik Sweetheart and After Dark were probably the two shortest, but still, much much longer than this one), and maybe it’s for this reason that I am left with a little of a dilemma on my hands. You see, I’m just so used to getting a minimum dosage of Murakami, that this book just doesn’t give me enough.

This book being his first ever published, it also reads a little less deep compared with his other more recent work. There seems to be less layers, less ambiguity, less confusion all-round. Though there are some signature phrases that you just know comes from Murakami, this book is, in a way, not quite complete.

Still, it’s awfully hard to tell things honestly. The more honest I try to be, the more the right words recede into the distance.

To be honest, I’m probably a bit biased with my thoughts on this book, myself being such a fan of his work. Not quite as satisfying as the others that I have read of his, of course, as I’ve already mentioned. But still, it’s just the way his story flows – the language, the structure (or non-structure) – that sweeps me along with the characters and their emotions.

You keep looking at the sea and you start to miss being with people; you stay around people all the time and you just want to go look at the sea.

For me, though not my favourite Murakami by a mile, but still worth every grain of salt. I’m now really wanting to read Pinball, 1973. Though it’s available for download on the internet somewhere (it should be easy enough to find. Just Google it), I just want to get my hands on the physical book, which is also not published outside of Japan.

Rating: 3.5